Brian Hayes (Dublin South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

At the heart of the new departure that we are trying to put into the Bill is the argument that if one does not get paid then one suspends the work and goes to adjudication. That is the ultimate power that we are creating here. Hitherto, that power was not in place for people or only in an unenforceable way.

In the circumstances to which the Deputy refers, everyone agrees the whole objective is to make sure that person gets paid. The section under discussion at present, section 4, is all about making sure in respect of payment claim notices. In the aforementioned circumstance, a person who has not been paid is entitled to suspend the work and go into adjudication mode, which would produce the result everyone seeks. Consequently, the Government does not believe it necessary to be as explicit as Deputy McDonald has outlined; the view is that it would complicate the existing provisions set out under section 4. However, I agree with the Deputy, in that we are all at one about how we are obtaining this objective. This is the reason this new departure, as I described the adjudication process, is the means through which these disputes will be resolved. We will deal with the threat of going to adjudication in a later section but in itself it provides the incentive for contractors and subcontractors to sort out this issue, which hitherto has not been in place.